ALEXANDER, MICHAEL [1799‑1845] – The first Anglican archbishop of Jerusalem. A German Jew who became a rabbi but lost that status when he was converted to Christianity in 1825. He was ordained in the Anglican Church in 1827 and for three years served as a missionary to the Jews in Danzig. He became Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge. He became Archbishop in Jerusalem in 1841 amid some controversy and died in Egypt in 1845 while on his way back to England.
ANTHIMUS V – Patriarch of Constantinople [1841-1842] who succeeded Anthimus IV [see 1840]. There is no additional material readily available.
BODE, JOHN ERNEST [1816-1874].- Anglican minister and Hymn Writer. He attended Eton, the Charter House, and Christ Church, Oxford University, where he won the Hertford Scholarship in 1835, and graduated with his B.A. in 1837 (followed by his M.A.). He was ordained in 1841; and became rector of Westwell, Oxfordshire in 1847; then of Castle Camps, Cambridgeshire, in 1860. He delivered his Bampton Lectures in 1855, and was for a time tutor and Classical Examiner at his college. He is remembered for his hymn “O Jesus I have promised”
BUNSEN, CHRISTIAN KARL JOSIAS VON [1791‑1860] – Prussian theologian and diplomat who was appointed as Prussian minister in London [1841‑1854]. Here Bunsen enthusiastically worked with the Anglican church to establish the Anglo Prussian Jerusalem bishopric in 1841. None of his theological or historical work has had permanent value.
DE LA CRUZ, APOLINARIO [1815-1841] – Filipino religious leader who went to Manila to join a monastic order but was rejected because he was a Filipino native. In 1840 he returned to Quezon and found a religious brotherhood for Filipinos. The movement grew widely among the masses, but was refused recognition by both ecclesiastical and colonial authorities. In 1841 he proclaimed war in the name of religious freedom. During skirmishes, a provincial government official was killed. De la Cruz was later captured, executed, and quartered, and the brotherhood was disbanded. He's now honoured as the first martyr to the cause of religious liberty and Filipino priestly equality.
HODGE, CHARLES [1797-1878] – A leading American theologian of the 19th century and father of A. A. Hodge [see 1877]. Educated at Princeton, he graduated there in 1815. His theological studies under Archibald Alexander [see 1812] determined his life work. He was professor of Oriental and Biblical literature [1822-1840] then professor of theology. His own theology was mainly that of the Westminster Confession with obvious traces of scholastic Calvinism. His thought was governed by a high view of verbal inspiration and infallibility. Hodge unswervingly defended the supernaturally inspired Bible and thereby placed his stamp upon what came to be called Princeton theology. His writings carried his influence beyond the 3000 students whom he taught during a half-century. He held a commanding position in the Presbyterian Church. He was a prominent member of the missionary and educational boards of the Presbyterians.
KELLY, WILLIAM [1821-1906] – Plymouth Brethren and biblical Critic. Educated in Dublin he was converted in 1841 to the principles of the Brethren and began to write extensively on behalf of the Darby section of that body. He edited two periodicals “The Prospect” [1848 to 1850] and the “Bible Treasury” from 1856 until his death. He wrote a long series of devotional works and commentaries as well as editing the collected works of J. Darby [see 1845]. In 1879 the excommunication of Dr Edward Cronin led to the “Kelly schism” in the Exclusive Brethren, Kelly heading the more moderate and understanding faction of that group until his death.
LIVINGSTONE, DAVID [1813-1873] – Scottish missionary and explorer who left school at ten years old and worked incredibly long hours in the mill but kept a book beside him while he worked. He was converted at about 17 years of age and dedicated his life to spread the gospel in other lands. He saved in order to study medicine and theology in Glasgow and heard the call to go to Africa through Robert Moffat [see 1816] who had laboured there for 23 years under the London Missionary Society and whose daughter Mary he was later to marry. Arriving in 1841 he soon moved north from Kuruman into unexplored and un-evangelised territory, thus beginning the travels which were to take him some 48,000 kilometres over the African continent. His first great discovery was Lake Ngami in 1849. Four years later he began the great journey of exploration from Cape Town to the Zambezi River, then west to the Atlantic Ocean and right across the continent to the Indian Ocean. In the course of this journey he found and named Victoria Falls. He returned home to find himself famous in 1856 and the following year published “Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa”. During his subsequent journeyings after returning to Africa he dropped out of sight and the New York Herald sent H.M. Stanley to find him which he did in 1871. Livingstone refused to return home and he died about the beginning of May 1873 and was subsequently buried in Westminster Abbey. Largely due to his reports, it was not long before slavery was made illegal throughout the civilised world.
PHILIPPINES [see also 1521] – In 1841 Apolinario de la Cruz [see above] became the first martyr being executed as a subversive. The revolution of 1868 and subsequent short lived republic in Spain resulted in a brief spell of liberalism in the colony but with the restoration of the monarchy in 1870, censorship was revived, the Filipinisation of the church was reversed and demand for political reform was declared treasonable and punishable by death. In 1872 three priests were executed for demanding Filipino leadership in the church. However with the increasing communications with the opening of the Suez Canal and the advent of the telegraph, the control was freed up. In 1898 the revolutionary government expelled the friars, confiscated their lands, and appointed Gregorio Aglipay [see 1902] as head of the Philippine Church. In 1902 the US Congress paid the friars $7 million compensation for loss of their lands. Until the middle of the 20th century the religious orders with the exception of the Jesuits were still dominated by foreigners. The first Protestant missionary to settle in the Philippines was James Rodgers an American Presbyterian who arrived in 1899. The Protestants agreed on a policy of dividing the missions in the country, the Episcopalians were unwilling to evangelise Roman Catholics and went only to the Muslims in the south, the Chinese, the Caucasians, and the animistic tribes. The only non American arrival was the British and Foreign Bible Society who had started translation into local languages commencing in the 1880s.
SELWYN, GEORGE AUGUSTUS [1809-1878] – First Church of England bishop of New Zealand who was educated at Cambridge and ordained in 1833. He gained parish experience in Windsor and Eton and was consecrated bishop of New Zealand in 1841 reaching Auckland the following year. Through an error of latitude in his letters patents he claimed his diocese took in much of the Pacific. He made frequent trips to Melanesia and founded a college in New Zealand to train young men from the islands for the proposed mission. In 1861 he was instrumental in making Melanesia a separate diocese under J.C. Patteson [see 1856]. By 1859 when the first general synod met, there were four other bishoprics. Selwyn was a pioneering in the concept of the independence of the Church of England in the colonies. He also supported evangelisation of the Maoris even in the difficult days of the Maori wars. Selwyn was appointed bishop of Lichfield and did much to pioneer industrial chaplaincy work there until his death
VAUGHAN, CHARLES JOHN [1816-1897] – Dean of Llandaff Wales who studied at Cambridge where he was elected a fellow in 1839. Vaughan was ordained in 1841 and became headmaster of Harrow which flourished as it was well organised under his control. When vicar of Doncaster [1860-1869] he began training young men for the ministry who were known as “Vaughan’s doves” continuing this work after he became master of the Temple [1869-1894]. Among his 450 pupils was the future archbishop of Canterbury Randall Davidson [see 1903]. Vaughan was hostile to High Church practices and to the contemporary German critical views of the Bible. He left strict instructions that no biography of him should be written. His Nonconformist sympathies brought him close links with the founding in 1883 of University College, Cardiff.
VENN, HENRY [1796-1873] – Missionary secretary. He was eldest child of John Venn [see 1783] he became a fellow at Queens College Cambridge and was presented by Wilberforce with the living of Drypool in 1827 before becoming vicar at St John's Holloway from 1834 to 1846. His greatest work was as secretary of the Church Missionary Society from 1841 until shortly before his death. Venn saw in Matthew 28:19 the emergence of national churches, with marked national characteristics, throughout the world. He believed that missionary policy should thus aim at the “quiet death of a mission” through the stimulation of “self-governing, self-supporting and self propagating churches”. His time as secretary of the Church Missionary Society witnessed a vast increase in the number of “native clergy” and sometimes against missionary opposition in the responsibilities they carried and the beginning of the indigenisation of the episcopate. After his death these policies were drastically modified but never formally abandoned.
1842
BAEUR, BRUNO [1809‑1882] – German radical scholar who became one of the greatest critics of Christianity arguing that the gospels were the inventions of their authors and that Christianity was the invention of the 2nd century Graeco‑Roman civilisation. His work received more attention after comments by Albert Schweitzer.
GERHART, EMANUEL VOGEL [1817-1904] – American Reformed theologian. Ordained in 1842 he served in Pennsylvania and Ohio. He was elected president of Heidelberg College and professor of systematic theology at the Reformed Seminary in Tiffin Ohio from 1851 to 1855. He held other progressive posts and wrote extensively including a systematic theology and the Heidelberg Catechism of 1863.
GERMANUS IV – Patriarch of Constantinople [1842-1845, 1852-1853] succeeded Anthimus V [see 1841]. In 1826-1830 he was bishop of Vidin, then bishop of Drama until 1835, when he was appointed bishop of Derkoi. He was elected to the patriarchal throne for the first time in 1842, and held the post until 1845, when he was succeeded by Meletius III. Restored to the throne in 1852, he occupied it until his death the next year. During his patriarchy he especially took care of the poor. He founded many churches, schools, libraries and orphanages. His name was particularly associated with the education of the Orthodox clergy, as he was the founder of the Theological School of Halki in the monastery of the Holy Trinity which produced many theologians, priests, bishops and patriarchs of note. The school operated regularly until 1971 when it was closed by the government.
JEWS, MISSIONS TO THE – Except under Hadrian, the Jews in the Roman empire down to the reign of Constantine retained their position as a tolerated cult and were therefore more favourably placed than the Christians. In much the same way this happened in the East under the Parthian and Sassanid dynasties. Hence the church tended to be on the defensive against the synagogue and, except for efforts by Hebrew Christians of which we know little, there was little mission to the Jews. During the Reformation and Counter-Reformation some little interest was shown by the Church in the conversion of the Jews but it was not until the Moravians in 1738 and Pietists that this became important. The work of Ezra Edzard [1629-1708], J.H. Callenberg [1694-1760], and A.H. Franke [1663-1723] led to the foundation of the Institution of the Jews at Halle in 1728 and showed a change in interest.
A new era began when J. Frey [1771-1851] a Hebrew Christian from Germany came to London. His work led to the founding in 1809 of the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, which is now called the Church’s Ministry among the Jews, as an interdenominational society. In 1842 Free Church supporters of Jewish missions founded the British Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, now the International Jews’ Society. The first acceptance of responsibility by a church as such was in 1840 by the Church of Scotland. The second generation of missionary societies came into existence in the second half of the 19th century largely as an answer to the westward surge of Eastern European Jews. England gave the lead with most societies being nondenominational. Most important were the Mildmay Mission to the Jews in 1876, the Barbican Mission to the Jews in 1889, and the Hebrew Christian Testimony to Israel in 1893. In America most missionary work was purely local in nature, but in 1894 Leopold Cohn founded the interdenominational American Board of Missions to the Jews which has grown to be the largest Jewish mission in the world. In 1938 The Friends of Israel was established. By the 1970’s the Southern Baptists were the only ones active outside of America. The effect of a Holocaust on both Jews and Christians and the coming into being of Israel led to an increasing stress on dialogue, which Vatican II declared to be the policy of the Roman Catholic Church.
KINGSLEY, CHARLES [1819-1875] – English novelist and Christian Socialist. Educated at King's College London and Cambridge, Kingsley was ordained in 1842. Although ill-qualified he was professor of modern history at Cambridge from 1862 to 1869 and later held the position of canon at Chester and Westminster. His concerns were educational and sanitary reform, and the extension of the co-operative principle. He was a critic of Tractarianism. Kingsley’s novels also generally have some bearing on social issues.
KRAUTH, CHARLES PORTERFIELD [1823–1883]. Lutheran theologian and editor, ordained into the Lutheran ministry in 1842. He served congregations in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania as a member of the Evangelical Lutheran General Synod. In 1861 he became the editor of the “Lutheran and Missionary” and three years later was elected professor at Mount Airy Lutheran Seminary. He advocated the Akron and Galesburg rules, stating “Lutheran altars for Lutherans only, Lutheran pulpits for Lutherans only”.
ORIGINAL SECESSION CHURCH – More properly “The Synod of United Original Seceders” this was constituted in Scotland in 1842. It was the union of various groups who were heirs of the secession of 1733 from the Church of Scotland. They rejoined the Church of Scotland in 1956. The original secession had taken place because Ebenezer Erskine [see1740] and others felt inhibited from protesting effectively against abuses in the Church of Scotland, particularly patronage. Later the seceders divided into Burghers and anti-Burghers over the right of taking the Burgher’s Oath professing the “true religion”, and the “Auld Lichts” and the “New Lichts” over the interpretation of the clauses in the Westminster Confession regarding the civil magistrate.
POPE, WILLIAM BURT [1822-1903] – Canadian Wesleyan minister born in Nova Scotia and educated in England he was ordained in 1842. Pope travelled in several circuits and established a reputation as a linguist. From 1867 to 1886 he was tutor at Didsbury Wesleyan College, Manchester. In 1875-76 he produced his greatest work “A Compendium of Christian Theology” in 3 volumes. Impeccably orthodox and the most powerful of all Wesleyan essays in dogmatic theology it undoubtedly held back the impact of critical ideas on English Methodism several decades. Pope died after a long and painful illness.
TOWNSEND, HENRY (1815 - 1886) was an Anglican missionary in Nigeria. Ordained in England in 1842, Townsend set off for Sierra Leone, landing there that same year. After working there only a few months, he was transferred to the Yoruba mission. From 1846 to 1867, he based his mission in Abeokuta. He was the first European person to enter Abeokuta and was 'given a grand reception'. Working with Samuel Crowther, a Yoruba Anglican priest, Townsend wrote several hymns in Yoruba and aided in the compilation of Crowther's Yoruba primer. He retired in 1876.
WHITMAN, MARCUS [1802-1847] – Presbyterian medical missionary who was born in New York and for eight years practiced medicine in Canada and New York. In 1835 the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions sent him to study the possibility of Indian missions in the American North-west. In 1836 his new bride Narcissa and a small missionary band accompanied him across the Rockies, founding a chain of mission stations in the Walla Walla River Valley. In the autumn of 1842 he began a famous 3000 mile horseback journey to Boston convincing the board to rescind its decision to close part of the work. Whitman returned in 1843 with immigrants to the Oregon Territory. Due to a tragic misunderstanding Cayuse Indians murdered him, his wife, and twelve others in 1847.
1843
AGAPEMONISM was a religious movement founded by Henry James Prince [1811-1899] an evangelical perfectionist. He began to make extravagant claims in 1843 which gave the impression that he was claiming to be in some sense an incarnation of God. A community was formed at Spaxton where a huge residence called Agapemone [Abode of Love] was erected. After declining it was revived under J H Smyth-Pigott but when in 1902 he called himself Jesus Christ the movement became unfashionable.
ASSUMPTIONISTS – Founded by a group of priests with simple vows in Nimes in 1843. The purpose was to restore higher education, to fight the churches enemies, and to fight for unity in the church. They were expelled from France in 1900 by an anticlerical government but spread to many parts of the world. Their work includes care of asylums and schools, the dissemination of literature, and missionary endeavour.
CUNNINGHAM, WILLIAM [1805-1861] – Scottish theologian who was one of the 1843 leaders of the Disruption [see 1843]. He was a learned theologian and controversialist both in theology and matters of the church and a close friend of Charles Hodge [see1841].
DISRUPTION, THE – This was the withdrawal of 474 ministers from the Church of Scotland which brought the Free Church of Scotland into existence. The Church of Scotland had been debilitated spiritually for about a century by various secessions. The secessionists were usually people who were deeply concerned about what they felt to be the wrongs of patronage, but the national church could ill afford to lose them. People flocked to the secessionist churches but at the same time the tide of evangelical life and power began to flow more strongly in the state church itself. The Evangelical party found an outstanding leader in Thomas Chalmers and it grew rapidly both in numbers and influence. There was a breath of genuine revival in the air. The General Assembly of 1842 by a large majority, declared that the Church of Scotland must be free to govern itself, and it protested against any attempt by Parliament or the courts to interfere in matters spiritual and ecclesiastical. The movement which led to the Disruption was undoubtedly spiritual at its heart, but it was also an expression of the 19th century swing towards greater democracy.
FISKE, FIDELIA [1816-1864] – First single woman missionary to Persia. Born in Massachusetts she was the niece of Pliny Fisk, one of the first two missionaries of the American Board to the Near East. She was converted at 15 and joined a Congregational church. The American Board appointed her to Persia in 1843. For 15 years she served in that land, principally among the Nestorian women and girls near Lake Urmia. She directed the first boarding school for girls in Persia. Ill health forced her to return to the USA in 1858 and she hoped to return to Persia but never did.
MEDHURST, WALTER HENRY [1796-1857] – Missionary to China educated at Hackney College and trained as a printer. He went first to Penang then to Batavia with the London Missionary Society. In 1843 he went to the newly opened Treaty Port of Shanghai which was to be his base until his death. In addition to evangelistic work he had already earned a reputation as a Chinese scholar and became a member of the Bible Society committee commissioned to produce the first union version of the Bible. Medhurst was a prominent figure among early Protestant missionaries to China.
METHODIUS Patriarch of Antioch [1843-1859] see also 1813 and 1860
MORISON, JAMES [1816-1893] – Founder of the Evangelical Union. He was the son of a Secession minister educated at Edinburgh and licensed to preach in 1839. His views on the universal nature of the Atonement soon led to suspension from the ministry of his denomination and joined by three others including his own father he founded the Evangelical Union in 1843. His remarkable gifts as a preacher drew huge congregations and this continued after he moved to Glasgow to become the first minister of Dundas Street Church with which post he combined the post of principal of the theological hall he established. Initially regarded as a heretic he became one of their most trusted and outstanding theologians of his time, a fact acknowledged by Glasgow University which made him a doctor of divinity in 1883. He was appreciated in America when he visited by the Cumberland Presbyterians [see 1810] who shared his dislike for strict Calvinism. The Evangelical Union joined the Scottish Congregationalists in 1898.
SCOTLAND [see also 1559] – The question of patronage by the landowners was a constant irritant that caused a number of schisms with the most important and largest being that of the Disruption of 1843 which led to the formation of the Free Church of Scotland. After the disappearance of the Scottish Parliament in the Union of 1707, the Church of Scotland became the only popular representative of the Scottish people. Christianity has had a stronger influence upon Scotland than upon most nations.
1844
CRAMP, JOHN MOCKETT [1791-1881] – Baptist pastor and scholar who in 1844 went to Canada to become president of Montreal Baptist College. In 1851 he became president of Acadia College Nova Scotia. In 1869 he resigned to devote himself to literary work which included writing theological and historical books.
EAST AFRICA KENYA – Effective preparation for the evangelisation of Kenya began in 1844 with the arrival of J.L. Krapf [see below], a German Lutheran sent out by the Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS). He began to work in Mombassa and then moved inland to Rabai some 50 kilometres from the sea where he was joined by a colleague John Rebmann in 1846 [see 1846]. Krapf was forced by ill health to return to Europe in 1853 but he continued his linguistic work. Meanwhile the CMS reinforced its staff at Rabai though several died from malaria. In 1861 the United Methodist Church from Britain opened a mission station at Ribe, a few kilometres north of Mombassa and later extended its work up to the Tana River. In 1873 slavery was legally abolished within the Sultanate of Zanzibar, and the CMS established a colony of freed slaves at Freretown on the mainland just north of Mombassa. Work in the hinterland began in 1891. The Imperial British East Africa Company invited the churches of Scotland to send out missionaries to Kenya. The original site which was chosen proved to be a bad one with the Rev Thomas Watson being the sole survivor of this party. He moved to a location near present day Nairobi.
In 1895 the Africa Inland Mission was formed by Peters Scott entered Kenya, and began to work among the Kamba people at Machakos in 1902. Other missions such as the Friends Africa Mission and the Seventh-Day Adventist Church moved up to stations in western Kenya, and Anglican missionaries entered West Kenya from Uganda and began church, educational, and medical work in that area. The modern history of Roman Catholic missionary work in Kenya began with the arrival of Holy Ghost Fathers, who were French in origin, in Mombassa in 1892. In 1924 the Kenya Missionary Council was established and finally the Christian Council of Kenya in 1943 to which almost all non-Roman Catholic churches and missions belong. Most of the missions have now been handed over to indigenous African churches, which have arisen out of their work and have now assumed control of the work formerly carried out by these missions.
FREE CHURCH OF ENGLAND – A reformed and Protestant church established in 1844 in reaction to the doctrines and development of the Oxford movement [see 1833] in the Church of England. Its constitution was formally registered in 1863. It is pledged to the Thirty Nine Articles, and its Prayer Book is, for all practical purposes, the 1689 revision of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, a revision acceptable at the time to Puritans, but not adopted by the Anglican Church. The existence of a vigorous evangelical wing in the Church of England has militated against the development of the Free Church of England, but it has persisted in the face of many difficulties.
GOVETT, ROBERT [1813-1901] – English theological writer who was educated Oxford and ordained as an Anglican in 1836. His preaching attracted great crowds until in 1844 he confessed that he had forced his conscience on the matter of infant baptism and resigned his curacy and fellowship. Most the congregation left the Church of England and made Govett their pastor and by 1848 he had baptised some 400 former Anglicans. The Surrey Chapel, in Norwich, was opened in 1854, and Govett ministered to the end of the century. Govett's writing was extensive and complete in its faithfulness to biblical revelation. Much concerned with eschatology, he held that the book of Revelation is to be understood literally.
HUC, ABBE [1813-1860] – Missionary to China. During the period after the Opium Wars there was significant persecution of the Roman Catholics. However, starting in 1844 and continuing for three years Huc and Father Gabet, French Lazarists, undertook a remarkable journey from Peking through Mongolia and Tibet to Lhasa and back to Canton. They were protected by wearing Mandarin dress and the crimson sash that signified kingship to the emperor. Everywhere they found terror-stricken little groups of Christians and nearly succeeded in establishing a mission in Lhasa itself. The famous account of his journeying stimulated fresh interest in many abroad in Christian missions to China.
KRAPF, JOHANN LUDWIG [1810-1881] – Pioneer missionary to Kenya, educated at Tubingen, he was a pastor for a short time before offering to the Anglican Church Missionary Society in 1838. Initially sent to Abyssinia he was transferred to Mombasa in 1844 where he laid his wife and newborn child in a lonely missionary grave. He took a house in Mombasa and studied Swahili into which he translated the New Testament and produced a standard dictionary and grammar. In 1846 he was joined by fellow German Lutheran, Johannes Rebmann [see 1846], and they moved to Rabai about 10 miles inland from Mombasa to work among the Wanyika. They made several important journeys of exploration inland. In 1853 Krapf had to return to Europe due to ill health but he maintained his interest in East Africa and continued important linguistic work. He did return on a couple of occasions to Africa before he died.
LATIN AMERICA [see also 1735 and 1916] – Protestant missionary activity. A milestone of the Protestant missions was the founding of the Patagonian Missionary Society, later renamed The South American Missionary Society, by an Anglican sea captain Allen Gardner in 1844. This was the first missionary of the aggressive evangelistic type. The British and Foreign Bible Society and the American Bible Society representatives such as James Thompson [1798-1854] and many more were active. Presbyterian churches were planted by missionaries David Trumbull [1819-1889] in Chile in 1868 and H.B. Pratt in Colombia in 1865. William Taylor [1821-1902] stressed the need for self-supporting missions and was an outstanding pioneer of Methodist work in Chile, Peru, and Central America. In 1882 J.H.L. Ewen of Great Britain, travelling through Argentina in a horse-drawn Bible Coach planted Plymouth Brethren assemblies there. Interdenominational work began when the American Board of Commissioners of the Foreign Missions sent workers to Mexico between 1860 and 1880, and when C.I. Scofield [see 1909] founded the Central American Mission in 1890, pioneering the work in almost every one of the Central American republics. Lack of religious liberty and harsh persecution from Roman Catholics severely hindered Protestant missions during this period.
OIKONOMOS, CONSTANTINE [1780-1857] – Greek scholar and theologian who was a keen patriot who was strongly opposed to Western influences in Greek life which had assumed increased importance in the 18th and 19th centuries. His most notable achievement was a massive four volume study of the Septuagint in over 3700 pages published in Athens [1844-1849].
The SOUTH AMERICAN MISSION SOCIETY was founded at Brighton in 1844 as the Patagonian Mission. Captain Allen Gardiner, R.N., was the first secretary. The name "Patagonian Mission" was retained for twenty years, when the new title was adopted. The name of the organization was changed after the death of Captain Gardiner, who died of starvation in 1851 on Picton Island in South America, waiting for a supply ship from England. Gardiner thought that the original mission should be expanded from southern South America (Patagonia) to all of South America. The Society's purpose is to recruit, send, and support Christian missionaries in South America. In 1860 Allen Gardiner, Jr. established a second mission station at Lota, Chile, and later won important official concessions against the incumbent Catholic clergy. This was the first of many successful missions that the South American Missionary Society founded on mainland South America. There are nationally based organizations in Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, and the United States.
STERN, HENRY AARON [1820-1885] – Missionary to the Jews. Stern was born to Jewish parents in Germany and educated at Frankfurt. At seventeen he began a commercial career in Hamburg but became interested in Christianity and was baptised in London in 1840. He trained as a missionary at the College of the London Jews Society and in 1844 he sailed for Baghdad and worked amongst the Jews and Muslims in Asia Minor and Persia until 1853 when he was transferred to Constantinople. In 1858-59 he went on missionary journeys to the Crimea and Arabia and then joined J.M. Flad [see 1868] in his work and among the Falasha Jews in Ethiopia. Later he incurred the hostility of the eccentric King Theodore. He was imprisoned and tortured [1863-1867] together with Flad and other Europeans. Flad was eventually released and an expeditionary force under Sir Robert Napier defeated Theodore who committed suicide. Stern and others were liberated and returned to England where the remaining years of his active ministry was spent in London where he wrote and distributed literature among the Jews and became famous for his missionary sermons.
THOMAS, OWEN [1812-1891] – Welsh Calvinistic Methodist minister and author who was the son of a stonemason and followed his father's craft. When the family moved to Bangor in 1827 he entered Bala College in 1838, and completed his studies at the University of Edinburgh. He was ordained in 1844 and after serving several pastorates he moved to Liverpool in 1865 and spent the remainder of his ministry there. He was an outstanding figure in the life of Welsh evangelical local churches in the Victorian Age. He was a firm defender of Calvinism in the moderate form that derived from the thinking of Dr Edward Williams. He was an extensive writer and his greatest achievement was the huge biography of John Jones [1796-1857] published in 1874 which is also a biography of Welsh evangelicalism in the first half of the 19th century.
WILLIAMS, SIR GEORGE [1821-1905] – Founder of the Young Men's Christian's Association [see below]. This son of a farmer and apprentice to a draper was converted through reading the works of C.G. Finney [see 1821] and joined the local Congregational church. In 1841 he went to work in London in a drapers shop and later rose to be a partner in the firm. In 1844 a meeting of twelve young men in Williams’ room is generally recognised as marking the foundation of the London YMCA. He was the major power behind the expansion of this international movement. Williams was an evangelist, temperance advocate, and social reformer as well as a businessman, and was knighted in 1894.
YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION – The YMCA appears to have had independent beginnings in several European countries but its origin is traditionally ascribed to George Williams [see above] and his meetings in London in 1844. The early decades were not untroubled and Williamson's primacy and single-minded purposefulness were often resented by British and foreign colleagues alike. It was criticised at various times for being either too broad or too narrow, particularly in its prohibition of games and smoking, the YMCA gradually overcome prejudice and added recreational relief work to its original evangelistic concerns. In the world wars with its symbol of the red triangle it provided especially for the needs of soldiers, the wounded, and prisoners of war.
1845
AMERICAN SOUTHERN METHODIST EPISCOPAL MISSION was an American Methodist missionary society operated by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South that was involved in sending workers to countries such as China during the late Qing Dynasty.
ANTHIMUS VI – Patriarch of Constantinople [1845-48, 1853-55, 1871-73] who succeeded Meletius III [see below]. He was the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople for three periods from 1845 to 1848, from 1853 to 1855 and from 1871 to 1873. He was born in Kutali Island in the Aegean Sea and died in Kandilli. Before becoming a patriarch, Anthimus was a monk at the Esphigmenou monastery in Mount Athos. In 1845 he expanded the monastery, adding two chapels, a vestibule and a porch to it.
ARTEMIUS Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria [1845-1847] see 1825 and 1847
BAUR, FERDINAND CHRISTIAN [1762‑1860] – German leader of the Tubingen School which criticised Christianity and the Bible. He had an anti‑supernatural and anti‑theistic interpretation of history and Christian origins. He was much influenced by Hegel. He believed that the only genuine letters of Paul were Romans, Galatians and the two books of Corinthians because of their anti Judaizing sentiments including the rejection of the law, circumcision and their wider conception of God.
BUCHANAN, JAMES [1804-1870] – Scottish evangelical theologian who studied at Glasgow and in 1828 was inducted into the large and influential parish of North Leith where his evangelical preaching attracted great crowds. At the 1843 disruption, in common with most fellow evangelicals, he left the established church and became minister of St Stephen’s Free Church Edinburgh. In 1845 he was appointed professor of apologetics at New College and two years later succeeded Thomas Chalmers [see 1815] in the chair of systematic theology.
CAIRNS, JOHN [1818‑1892] – The most outstanding United Presbyterian leader of his time. He was brought up among Seceders the son of a border shepherd and ordained in 1845 where he ministered at Berwick on Tweed for thirty years. He became professor of theology at Edinburgh in 1876. It is said that because of his personality and character “his death called forth a manifestation of public feeling such as does not occur twice in one generation.”
CANDLISH, ROBERT [1806‑1873] – Scottish minister who was one of the founders of the Evangelical Alliance in 1845 and its moderator in 1861. He left the Church of Scotland at the Disruption [see 1843] to form the Free Church of Scotland. In his Cunningham lectures of 1861 he disagreed with F D Maurice’s [see 1838] view of the universal fatherhood of God. He was not universally accepted for his theology particularly within his denomination.
CARLYLE, THOMAS [1795-1881] – Scottish writer who was the son of a peasant farmer who was concerned about social conditions which in his concept required strong just men to emerge and sort out the problems. He produced two massive works on Oliver Cromwell [1845] and Frederick the Great [1858-65]. He admired the Puritans and Covenanters but it is sad that he became disillusioned in his Latter-Day Pamphlets.
CYRIL II Patriarch of Jerusalem [1845-1872] see 1827 and 1872
DARBY, JOHN NELSON [1800-1882] – Plymouth Brethren leader who was born into a distinguished Anglo Irish family. Darby had a distinguished career at Trinity College Dublin and after graduation in 1819 was called to the Irish Chancery Bar in 1822. Ordained three years later and serving in a parish in County Wicklow he became uneasy about church establishment and startled the country in 1827 with his tract "On the Nature and Unity of the Church of Christ". Resigning his curacy the same year he associated with a group meeting in Dublin for communion and prayer and quickly assumed leadership because of his teaching gift and his powerful and attractive personality. From 1830 he often made preaching trips to the Continent. In 1845 Darby broke with B. W. Newton [see 1847] in Plymouth through disagreements on prophecy and ecclesiology and later led the attack on Newton on heresy charges that forced the 1848 division of the brethren into Open and Exclusive groups. Darby later travelled to North America, the West Indies, and New Zealand. Though not the founder of the so-called Plymouth Brethren he was undoubtedly the most gifted teacher at the beginning.
GOBAT, SAMUEL [1799-1879] – Bishop of Jerusalem. French-speaking Protestant who entered Basle Mission Society's school in 1821 where he showed considerable linguistic skills. He studied Arabic in Paris and transferred to the English Church Missionary Society for service in Ethiopia. He spent two terms there in the 1830s then went to Malta to do translation work. In 1845 the Lutheran Gobat was ordained into the Anglican church and a year later King Frederick William IV appointed him to the joint English-Prussian bishopric of Jerusalem. In Palestine he founded hospitals, schools, and orphanages, and brought in German workers to assist in his ministry. He came under pressure through his work with the Orthodox Church. After his death Prussia withdrew its support from the bishopric, leaving it purely an Anglican post.--
HOFMANN, JOHANN CHRISTIAN KONRAD VON [1810-1877] – German Lutheran theologian who is widely regarded as the most significant theologian representing the Erlangen School which is a modified form of Lutheran orthodoxy. He taught there from 1845 laying great emphasis on biblical exegesis which he coupled with stress on Christian experience. The latter is expressed historically in salvation history, of which Scripture is the record prior and subsequent to the coming of Christ.
HUNT, JOHN [1812-1848] – English missionary to Fiji who was born into a farming family in Lincolnshire and had little formal schooling. Converted in a Methodist meeting at 17 he educated himself and preached in various chapels. After being ordained in 1838 he sailed to Fiji as a missionary where he stressed Bible translation and the training of indigenous pastors. As he was a strong enthusiast for the doctrine of entire sanctification his preaching sparked a revival in 1845. The rigours of extensive travelling in visiting the scattered Fijian congregations led to his early death. His translation of the Scriptures were published posthumously, the New Testament in 1853 and the whole Bible finally being published in 1864.
MELETIUS III – Patriarch of Constantinople [1845] succeeded Germanus IV [see 1842]. There is no additional information readily available.
NEWMAN, JOHN HENRY [1801-1890] – Tractarian and cardinal. Born into a family of Evangelicals, this was the strongest influence upon him until entering Oxford in 1817. He gradually relinquished evangelicalism under the influence of R. Whatley [see 1831] who impressed upon him the divine appointment of the church, and Hawkins who taught him to value tradition. E.B. Pusey [see 1828], J. Keble [see 1833], and above all R.H. Froud [see 1831] took him further into High Church beliefs. He became vicar at St Mary's University Church at Oxford and issued a number of tracts attempting a reconciliation between the 39 Articles and Romanism. He came under widespread criticism, and his researches into the early church resulted in his book “The Arians of the Fourth Century”, and also led to doubts about the Church of England which were raised again in 1839 when he was studying the Monophysite controversy. He resigned from St Mary’s in 1843 and joined the Roman Catholic church in 1845. In 1864 in response to a personal attack upon him by Charles Kingsley [see 1842] Newman replied in a paper which again brought him into prominence. In 1879 he was made a cardinal. His influence within both the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church has been immense. His hymn “Praise to the Holiest in the height” is still frequently sung.
OOSTERZEE, JAN JAKOB VAN [1817-1882] – Dutch Reformed minister who was educated at Utrecht and by 1862 had served several churches in Alkmaar. Well known as a pulpit orator and evangelical leader he taught practical theology at Utrecht. His writing career began in 1845 as editor of a theological journal. Oosterzee published a number of works which covered the full range of pastoral and teaching expertise.
PORTUGAL [see also 1614] – Protestantism did not effectively reach Portugal until 1845 when meetings were commenced simultaneously in Lisbon and Oporto. Since then a large variety of missionary agencies have been active and the progress of the reformed faith has been similar to that in Spain, with English Methodism playing a more active role. Since 1917 popular devotion in the country has been enormously strengthened by the cult of our Lady of Fatima. This, which is now the hallmark of Portuguese Catholicism, began in a small town in the middle of the country in May 1917 when three poor children are alleged to have seen a vision of the virgin on six occasions. The cult which had the accompanying miraculous cures were first frowned on by the church but from 1930 have been officially favoured and Our Lady of Fatima is now identified, unofficially at least, as the queen of Portugal.
SAKER, ALFRED [1814-1880] – Missionary to the Cameroon. Saker was an engineer and joined the Baptist Mission which left Jamaica to work among the liberated slaves in Fernando Po in 1843. In Cameroon in 1845 he founded Bethel Station, giving himself to preaching, teaching, and translation. When the Spanish authorities stopped Protestant worship on Fernando Po in 1858, Saker with ninety families founded a settlement in Victoria on Cameroon's mainland. He introduced crafts and building work and completed the Douala Bible in 1872. He also made the first ascent of Cameroons Mountain [13,352 ft] with Sir Richard Burton. Retiring to England in failing health in 1876 Saker encouraged the founding of the Baptist Missionary Society Congo Mission in his closing years.
SALMON, GEORGE [1819-1904] – Anglican minister who was the son of a Protestant linen merchant of Cork. Salmon had a brilliant career at Trinity College Dublin where he spent much of his life as professor and provost. He was ordained into the Church of Ireland in 1845. Salmon pursued two separate academic disciplines, he was internationally recognised as a mathematician, he was also widely known for his theological writings. Strongly Protestant he co-operated with Archbishop Whately [see 1831] in “Cautions for the Times” an answer to the Tractarians [see 1833]. He later questioned successfully many of the questionable parts of Hort’s Greek New Testament text.
SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION is an American Southern Baptist missionary society founded in 1845 which was involved in sending workers to countries such as China during the late Qing Dynasty. Its most famous missionary was Lottie Moon. [see 1873]
TACHE, ALEXANDER ANTONIN [1823-1894] – Canadian Roman Catholic bishop who was born in Quebec and educated at Montréal and in 1844 became a member of the Oblate Order being ordained in 1845. Tache was sent as a missionary to the Red River area of Manitoba. He became the second bishop of St Boniface in 1853 and was created archbishop there in 1871. He helped restore order during the Riel Rebellion in 1869- 70. He was also a leader in the Manitoba separate-school struggle.
WILBUR, JOHN [1774-1856] – Quaker preacher who became minister of the Society of Friends in 1812. Wilber was known as a rugged and effective speaker. On a preaching tour of the British Isles [1831-1833] he zealously opposed the evangelical movement’s entering Quakerism under the leadership of Joseph Gurney, Elizabeth Fry's brother. When Gurney preached in America [1837-1838], Wilber opposed him and was expelled, becoming leader in 1845 of some 500 separatists.
1846
AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION was a Protestant-based abolitionist group founded on in 1846 in Albany, New York. The main purpose of this organization was to eliminate slavery, to educate African Americans, to promote racial equality, and to promote Christian values. Its members and leaders were of both races and chiefly affiliated with Congregationalist, Methodist and Presbyterian churches. From the beginning the leadership was integrated: the first board was made up of 12 men, four of them black. Members of the AMA started their support of education for blacks before the Civil War, but their pace of founding schools and colleges increased during and afterward. Freedmen and sympathizers alike believed that education was a priority. Altogether, "the AMA founded more than five hundred schools and colleges for the freedmen of the South during and after the Civil War, spending more money for that purpose than the Freedmen's Bureau of the federal government. While the AMA became notable in the United States with its work in opposition to slavery and in support of education for freedmen, it also worked in missions in numerous nations overseas.
BUCHAN, ELSPETH [1783‑1846] – The founder of the most bizarre Scottish sect, the Buchanites [see 1820] died in 1846. She claimed to be the Holy Spirit and the woman clothed in the sun of the Revelation.
BURNS, WILLIAM [1815‑1888] – Scottish Presbyterian missionary to China who studied at Aberdeen and was licensed to preach in 1839. After a successful evangelistic ministry in Scotland, Ireland, and Canada he went to China in 1846. He studied Chinese, adopted native dress and laboured for many years and whilst not visibly successful inspired Hudson Taylor [see 1865] for a ministry in China. He translated Pilgrims Progress and some hymns into Chinese and died in a remote spot he had chosen to visit because of its destitution.
DABNEY, ROBERT [1820-1898] – He was a young contemporary of J. H. Thornwell and is generally regarded as the second great theologian of the Southern Presbyterian Church. He graduated from the University of Virginia in 1842, and in 1844 entered the Union Seminary, was licensed to preach in 1846 before becoming Minister of the Tinkling Springs Presbyterian Church in 1881. He took a prominent part in the formation of the Southern Presbyterian Church. From 1861 he served as chaplain, then as chief of staff to Stonewall Jackson. He played a prominent role in the foundation of Austin Theological Seminary. In 1870 he published his “Syllabus and Notes of the Course of Systematic and Polemic Theology Taught in the Union Seminary in Virginia”, which revised and re-issued in 1878 went through six editions until 1927.
EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE [see 1951] which was formed in 1846 after Christian leaders had felt the need to present a more united front in the face of political upheaval in Europe. It was stressed at the inaugural conference in London that those present had not met to create a Christian union, but to confess the unity which the Church of Christ possessed as his body. One of the first difficulties encountered was a difference of opinion within the ranks regarding the rights and wrongs of slavery. In the course of the first century of its existence the Alliance concentrated its attention on a number of different projects, including the relief of persecuted Protestant minorities, the promotion of a united week of prayer throughout the world during the first full week of January, the defence of biblical Christianity, and the promotion of missionary work.
FERRETTI, SALVATORE [1817-1874] – Organiser of the Evangelical Italian church in London. A man of great faith and deep humanity, in 1846 he founded a school in London to save poor Italian children from the exploitation of other Italians who used them to beg in the city and cruelly ill treated them. The school, which he supported, gave private lessons in Italian and was put under the auspices of the “Society for the religious care and instruction of foreigners” which had been founded by Lord Shaftesbury. Returning to Italy in 1861 he founded an orphanage for girls in Florence, which is still in existence.
GAIRDNER, JAMES [1828-1912] – Scottish historian and records scholar. He worked as a clerk and an editor in the Public Record Office, London from 1846 to 1893. Always strongly Protestant in his outlook, he also sought to be objective in his editing and writing. He wrote a number of books closing his career with the four volume work on Lollardy and the Reformation in England.
MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY, FELIX [1809-1847] – Musical composer who was born into a cultured Jewish family that turned to the Lutheran Church. He was talented not only in music but also art. He presented Bach’s St Matthew Passion in 1829, the first time since the composer's death and this marked the beginning of the revival of Bach's great legacy of choral music. Mendelssohn’s oratorio “Elijah” was written for the Birmingham Festival in 1846 and is one of the greatest 19th-century oratorios. Extracts of his music are often used as service music and his setting of Psalm 43 for unaccompanied chorus is a fine piece of its kind.
NEALE, JOHN MASON [1818-1866] – Anglican scholar and hymn writer who was educated at Cambridge and although his parents were Evangelicals he adopted High Church ideals. Lifelong ill-health prevented him in 1843 from accepting a living at Crawley in Sussex but in 1846 he assumed the wardenship of Sackville College East Grinstead, a refuge for needy old men. There he remained the rest of his life. His ritualism caused the bishop of Chichester to inhibit him for many years. Despite bitter Protestant opposition, Neale founded for the education of girls and the care of the sick the Sisterhood of St Margaret at Rotherfield in 1854. Among his many hymns are translations including “All glory, laud, and honour”, Good King Wenceslas” and “O come, O come, Immanuel”.
PIUS IX – Pope [1846-1878]. He was archbishop of Spoleto in 1827 and bishop of Imola five years later before his election as pope. He enjoyed the longest reign as pontiff and oversaw the revival of the Roman Catholic Church in the 19th century. Two major events dominated his reign, the end of papal temporal power and the first Vatican Council in 1869-1870. Pius experienced revolution personally in the Revolution of 1848-49 when he was forced to flee Rome. French troops restored him in April 1850 and occupied Rome for most of the next twenty years. However uprisings and the Sardinian Italian invasions in 1859-60 and 1870 terminated the papal temporal power over the Papal States. He constructively promoted Ultramontane renewal of his spiritual power by defining in 1854 the Immaculate Conception of Mary which encouraged wide popular Catholic revival among the faithful as did the promulgation of Papal Infallibility in 1870 and the convening of the Vatican Council in the same year. He re-established hierarchies in a number of countries and in the process Pius IX achieved a church remarkably independent from state domination. He succeeded Gregory XVI [see 1831] and was succeeded by Leo XIII [see 1878].
REBMANN, JOHANNES [1819-1876] – German missionary to East Africa. Born in Wittenberg and trained at Basle, Rebmann was sent to East Africa by the Church Missionary Society in 1846. With J.L. Krapf [see 1844] he established the Rabia Mpia mission among the Nykia. Rebmann took several exploratory journeys and was the first European to see Kilimanjaro in 1848. He prepared a map which helped inspire the Burton and Speke expedition of 1857. His linguistic studies in three vernaculars laid firm foundations for future workers. After 1855 he was alone at Rabia Mpia except for a brief period. In 1875 Rebmann returned to Europe blind and broken in health. His death coincided with the effective entry of the Church Missionary Society into East Africa.
ROSMINI, ANTONIO [1797-1855] – Italian philosopher and founder of the order of the Sisters of Providence. He was ordained a priest in 1821 and despite his early conservative views became the author of many significant progressive works dealing with various aspects of philosophy, politics, law, economics, and natural science. In 1846 Rosmini denounced the insufficient education of the clergy, the divisions among bishops, and the riches of the church. With Gioberti [see 1833] he hoped for a confederation of the states of Italy under the leadership of the pope.
SCRIVENER, FREDERICK HENRY AMBROSE [1813-1891] – New Testament scholar who was educated at Cambridge and taught for 10 years at King's School Sherborne and was headmaster of Falmouth School from 1846 to 1856 and later prebendary of Exeter 1874 to 1891. Throughout his entire working life he studied New Testament texts and published the texts of 20 manuscripts and listed all known manuscripts. He was an ardent supporter of the Textus Receptus in opposition to Wescott and Hort text used in the Revised Version. He failed to convince other scholars of his view.
SPITTLER, CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH [1782-1867] – Swiss German mission founder. He helped to establish the Basel Mission Society in 1815 and during the 1820s sought to organise a work in Greece. His principle achievement was the St. Chrischoma Pilgrim Mission which was founded in 1840. He founded a missionary training school for skilled craftsmen in a church near Basle and its graduates first ministered among German immigrants in America. After 1846 the primary field became Palestine. Inspired by Samuel Gobat [see 1845] in Jerusalem, Spittler tried to extend his work to the Ethiopia but this was unsuccessful. After his death the mission opened a China field in cooperation with Hudson Taylor [see 1865].
THOMPSON, WILLIAM (Lord Kelvin) [1824-1907] – Physicist who was educated at Cambridge and in 1846 was appointed professor of natural philosophy at Glasgow holding the chair there for 53 years and becoming the leader of science in his generation. He made numerous discoveries; he was co-founder with J.P. Joule and others of the science of thermodynamics; he was the originator of the absolute [Kelvin] scale of temperature; founder of geophysics; inventor of numerous electrical instruments; pioneer of the first Atlantic cable in 1858 and of electrical power transmission. In early life he was inspired by Faraday; his early research originated in the desire to discover when God had created the world. Kelvin's character was exemplary, he was modest, never claimed priority in discovery, took special delight in the praising the work of others, even the most junior, and treated assistants and students with the same deference as fellow professors. He was deeply interested in and knowledgeable about the Bible and from 1860 was often involved in courteous controversy with geologists and materialistic evolutionists on topics relevant to the Christian faith.
TRENCH, RICHARD CHEVENIX [1807-1886] – Archbishop of Dublin who was educated at Cambridge, ordained in 1832, and was professor of divinity at King's College London from 1846 to 1858, and dean of Westminster from 1856 to 1863. Trench went to Dublin in 1863 as the archbishop and there he opposed unsuccessfully the disestablishment of the Irish Church but did much to settle the church after the legislation had been passed before he retired in 1884.
WHITE, ELLEN GOULD [1827-1915] – She was the most prominent leader of the Seventh-day Adventists Church. Born in Maine she received almost no formal education because of poor health. Her parents were devout Methodists but in the 1840’s embraced William Miller's [see 1833] Advent preaching and were disbarred from the church. Miller's preaching and Mrs White's testimony of her own revelations formed the beginning of the Seventh-day Adventists Church, which stresses a strong prophetic and eschatological note as well as health reform. She married Elder James White in 1846. In 1855 they moved to Battle Creek Michigan where the church headquarters came to be located after her husband's death in 1881. She spent some time in Europe and Australia and was a prolific writer.
1847
BEECHER, HENRY WARD [1813‑1887] – Congregational pastor was the son of Lyman Beecher [see 1832]. He was ordained by the New School Presbytery of Cincinnati in 1838 and eventually became pastor of the Plymouth Church of Brooklyn [1847‑1887]. He was a witty and dramatic preacher and was politically active. He did not believe in a literal hell and accepted evolution which caused criticism but none so great as an unproved adultery charge which overshadowed his later years.
BRADBURY, WILLIAM [1816‑1868] – American hymn tune writer who edited over 50 Sunday School and choir music books. By age fourteen he had mastered every musical instrument available, but never saw an organ or a piano until 1830, when his parents moved to Boston. He studied in Boston under Summer Hill and Lowell Mason [see below], and became a music instructor and organist in New York where he gained popularity by his free singing-schools, and by his concerts, at which the performers, all children, sometimes numbered 1,000. He studied in Leipzig for two years from 1847 and was criticised for treating music as a business rather than being a performer. He wrote the tunes to "Just as I am" and “He leadeth me”.
DESANCTIS, LUIGI [1808-1869] – Parish priest in Rome who was a Protestant pastor and theologian. Perturbed by the moral and doctrinal corruption of the church, he went through a long spiritual crisis and finally leaving the Roman Catholic Church took refuge in Malta in 1847. After a stay in Geneva from 1850-1852 as evangelist to the Italian exiles he was ordained pastor in their Waldensian church and sent to Turin where his presence gave a great impulse to the community. He joined A. Gavazzi [see 1863], attracted by his dream of founding a national Italian church, but finally returned to the Waldensians moving to France and lecturing in their faculty of theology.
ENGLISH PRESBYTERIAN MISSION. The Presbyterian Church of England resolved to establish a mission in China in 1847. The Rev. William Chalmers Burns was sent out to China residing first at Hong Kong and then at Amoy. Ten years later he was joined by the Rev.George Smith. Burns laid the foundation of what became one of the most extensive and prosperous Christian missions in the Chinese Empire. Its principal centres were Shantou, Amoy, and Taiwan. It had several establishments, combining churches, mission houses, hospitals, and schools and was well funded. The senior missionaries in the field were Rev. H. L. Mackenzie of Shantou, and Rev. W. McGregor of Amoy. This Society was greatly aided by a women’s association, by which female agents were sent out from England. Several of these had certificates for midwifery, and possessed a general practical knowledge of medicine, being thus able to alleviate the sufferings of the native women to a very considerable degree. In 1890 it had one hundred and six stations in China and Singapore, and employed fifteen ordained missionaries and medical workers.
GEDDIE, JOHN [1815-1872] – Pioneer Presbyterian missionary to the New Hebrides. Born in Scotland his family migrated to Nova Scotia in 1816. He became interested in missions at a very early age. After ordination he was instrumental in getting his small denomination to undertake a mission on its own. He became its first missionary, sailing from the USA in January 1847. As founder of the New Hebrides Mission, he laboured amid great difficulty on the island of Aneityum. After his death in 1872, a memorial was placed in the mission church with these words “When he landed in 1848 there were no Christians here, and when he left in 1872 there were no heathen.”
GRAY, ROBERT [1809-1872] – First Anglican bishop of Cape Town who was consecrated in 1847. He found South African Anglicanism weak and disorganised. Under his leadership it developed into the Church of the Province of South Africa, an independent, disestablished province of the Anglican Communion with five dioceses by 1870. However this was not achieved without difficulty and involved conflict and the case of J.W. Colenso [see 1853] leading to litigation. Despite poor health Gray travelled widely in his diocese and overseas enlisting recruits and raising money. He favoured the appointment of missionary bishops to un-evangelised areas and inspired the formation of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa.
HIEROTHEUS II Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria [1847-1858] see 1845 and 1858
MASON, LOWELL [1792-1872] – American composer who as an amateur church musician became perhaps the greatest single influence in Protestant church music in the United States during the 19th century. He edited and published a great number of collections of hymn tunes and simple anthems and devoted much of his energy to music education and the betterment of church music.
MONOD, ADOLPHE [1802-1856] – The greatest French Protestant preacher of the 19th century who was the leader of a powerful orthodox movement within the Reformed Church and other churches. At first Monod shunned the Geneva revival promoted by his brother Frederick [see 1832]. Contacts with the Scot, Thomas Erskine [see 1870], led him to conversion and acceptance of orthodox theology. His greatest influence was reached while pastor of the prestigious Oratoire Church in Paris [1847-1856]. His published sermons were very popular in France and abroad.
NEWTON, BENJAMIN WILLS [1807-1899] – Early Plymouth Brethren leader. Born into a Quaker family he trained at Oxford where he was also influenced by John Darby [see 1845] who came on a visit. Newton began his ministry in Plymouth and travelled throughout the county preaching. In 1835 he was used in the conversion of his cousin S.P. Tregelles [see 1857] the textual critic to whose researches he gave generous financial aid. Newton and Darby differed over prophetical interpretation and church order and in 1847 Newton was charged with heresy through some teaching on Christ's humanity. Newton withdrew the doctrine. He ministered for many years in a chapel at Bayswater. An austere man of Calvinistic views and high personal honour, Newton influenced many leading ministers of his time.
NITZSCH, KARL IMMANUEL [1787-1868] – German Lutheran theologian who was educated at Wittenberg and became assistant preacher at the Castle Church there in 1811. In 1822 he was called to a chair of theology at the University of Bonn and in 1847 succeeded P.K. Marheineke as professor of theology at Berlin. As a theologian he represented a position that sought to mediate between the culture of the early 19th century and the tradition of historical Christianity. He stressed the immediacy of religious feeling as the basis of religious knowledge, uniting elements of Schleiermacher’s [see 1804] theology with classical Protestant dogmatics.
PARK, EDWARDS AMASA [1808-1900] – American Congregational theologian and professor of Christian theology at Andover Theological Seminary from 1847 to 1881 where he helped to found and edit “Bibliotheca Sacra”. Unlike Charles Hodge who fused Edwards to Scottish philosophy, Park allied divine sovereignty to the “theology of the heart”.
PERRY, CHARLES [1807-1891] – First Church of England bishop of Melbourne, Australia, who was educated at Cambridge where he was influenced by Charles Simeon [see 1782]. He gained pastoral experience by creating the new parish of St Paul's in Cambridge where he was vicar for five years from 1842. In 1847 he was chosen as first bishop of the new colony of Victoria. On his arrival in Melbourne there were only three colonial chaplains. During the gold rushes of the 1850’s he found great difficulty in supplying clergy or churches to a vastly increased population. Perry's evangelical convictions assisted him to involve the laity and his conference of 1851 was the first its kind in Australia. He resigned from his diocese in 1876 and became a canon of Llandaff Cathedral. He played an important part in many evangelical societies and in the foundation of Evangelical theological colleges in Oxford and Cambridge.
QUIMBY, PHINEAS PARKHURST [1802-1866] – Founder of Christian Science and mental healing movement in America. He abandoned clock making to become a mesmerist after hearing the lectures of Charles Poyen in 1838. By 1847 he forsook mesmerism for mental healing, and established a settled practice in Portland Maine in 1849. He felt all disease arose in the mind and that it came mostly from erroneously attributing illness to physical causes. Quimby's philosophy became the foundation of Christian Science [see 1866] which was his term for properly understanding the relation between the divine and the human. Based on his treatment and manuscripts, his patient and disciple M.B. Eddy [see 1877] practiced his methods after his death and in 1875 established Christian Science as a distinct religion.
ROBERTSON, FREDERICK WILLIAM [1816-1853] – Anglican preacher educated at Edinburgh and Oxford who became vicar of Trinity Chapel Brighton where in the six years before his death he established a reputation as a preacher equal to that of any man in the 19th century. Robertson began as an evangelical but the practice of some of those professing this view of Christianity during his first year as curate did much to drive him from any sympathy with them. He nonetheless brought evangelical passion to his beliefs and preaching. His views were closely aligned to the Christian Socialism under F.D. Maurice [see 1838].
SHORT, AUGUSTUS [1802-1883] – He was the first Church of England bishop of Adelaide. Short was educated at Oxford where he became a tutor in 1829 and was influenced by the Tractarians. In 1835 he accepted a living in Ravensthorpe and in 1847 became bishop of Adelaide, Australia. On his arrival he found five clergy and by 1851 all state aid was discontinued so he reorganised his diocese as a voluntary body in 1855. In 1856 the creation of the diocese of Perth relieved him of oversight of Western Australia. He retired in 1881 and died in Eastbourne, England.
1848
BOWEN, GEORGE [1816‑1888] – American missionary who was called the “White Saint of India”. After an irreligious youth he was converted after the death of his sweetheart in 1844. Appointed to the Marathi Mission by the American Board in 1848 he served in the Bombay area for 40 years as a self supporting missionary, unmarried and without furlough. In 1872 influenced by William Taylor [see 1884] he joined the Methodist Church in India. He was editor of the “Bombay Guardian” and was a great influence on both missionaries and Indians alike.
BRIDGES, MATTHEW [1800-1894] – Hymn Writer. Matthew Bridges was born at Malden, Essex, on July 14, 1800. He began his literary career with the publication of a poem, Jerusalem Regained, in 1825; followed by a book entitled The Roman Empire under Constantine the Great, in 1828, its purpose being to examine "the real origin of certain papal superstitions." As a result of the influence of John Henry Newman and the Oxford Movement, Bridges became a Roman Catholic in 1848, and spent the latter part of his life in Canada. He is known for his hymn “Crown Him with many crowns” He died in Quebec.
DILLMAN, CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH [1823-1894] – Lutheran biblical scholar and orientalist who studied at Tubingen. He became interested in the neglected field of language studies of the Ethiopian Church, and worked on Ethiopic manuscripts in Paris, London, and Oxford, producing catalogues of the collections at the British Museum and the Bodleian library. He produced the grammar and lexicon of Ethiopic and editions of Ethiopic texts of the Old Testament. In later life he wrote commentaries on some Old Testament books.
EDKINS, JOSEPH [1823-1905] – Missionary to China. Edkins was sent by the London Missionary Society to China in 1848. In 1868 at the invitation of Hung-ren, a convert, he twice visited the Taiping rebels in Suchow and Nanking to instruct them in the Christian faith. He visited Peking in 1862 and baptised the first three Protestant converts in that city which then became a new London Missionary Society base for evangelism. An eminent philologist, Edkins also wrote extensively about China's religions.
FORBES, ALEXANDER PENROSE [1817-1875] – Bishop of Brechin who was educated at Glasgow University before going for three years to work with the East India Company in Madras. Returning to Britain in 1844 he graduated from Oxford and was ordained in the Church of England becoming the bishop of Brechin in 1848. He was a close friend of Edward Pusey [see 1828]. Forbes advocated the doctrine of the Real Presence, a stand which brought censure from his episcopal colleagues. He was a prolific author.
KIERKEGAARD, SOREN AABY [1813-1855] – Danish philosopher, son of a wealthy Lutheran. He retired early to devote his life to piety. He had a melancholy disposition inherited from his father and his writings are individual and introspective. In holy week 1848 Kierkegaard underwent a second conversion experience and he attacked formal conformist Christianity into which Protestantism had now fallen.
MURRAY, ANDREW [1828-1917] – South African Dutch Reformed leader educated in Scotland and Holland and ordained in 1848. Murray served in a number of parishes and was six times moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) in Cape Colony. Theologically conservative he led opposition to liberalism in the DRC during the 1860s. Mystically inclined Murray was greatly influence by William Law [see 1714] and led a profound devotional life. He undertook frequent evangelistic tours in South Africa and addressed the Keswick and Northfield conventions in 1895. Murray was the moving spirit in the missionary awakening which led to DRC missions in the Transvaal and Malawi and he also supported the South Africa General Mission. He was the most influential leader of his own church in the 19th century and an evangelical Christian of international stature.
SUMNER, JOHN BIRD – Archbishop of Canterbury [1848-1862]. He was born at Kenilworth, Warwickshire and educated at Eton College and Cambridge University. In 1802 he became a master at Eton and was ordained the following year. After being a minister of the Durham diocese for some years, he was consecrated bishop of Chester in 1828. During his episcopate many churches and schools were built in the diocese. He was a prolific author whose writings were much appreciated by the Evangelical party to which he belonged. His best known writings are his Treatise on the Records of Creation and the Moral Attributes of the Creator [1816], and The Evidence of Christianity derived from its Nature and Reception [1821]. In 1848 he was appointed archbishop of Canterbury and in this capacity he dealt impartially with the different church parties. In the well-known Gorham Case he came into conflict with Bishop Henry Phillpotts of Exeter (1778-1869), who accused him of supporting heresy and refused to communicate with him. He was president of the Canterbury Association that founded Christchurch, New Zealand. He succeeded William Howley [see 1828] and was succeeded by Charles Thomas Longley [see 1862].
TYRRELL, WILLIAM [1807-1879] – First bishop of Newcastle, Australia. Tyrrell was educated at Cambridge and ordained in 1833 becoming the vicar of Beauleiu in Hampshire in 1839. In 1847 when W.G. Broughton [see 1836] divided the diocese of Australia, Tyrrell became bishop of the northern part of eastern Australia based at Newcastle. He arrived in 1848 and found only eleven clergy to cover his vast diocese of over 20,000 sq miles. In 1859 the diocese of Brisbane was separated from Newcastle and eight years later after a long delay the diocese of Grafton and Armidale took the northern part of New South Wales from Tyrrell's diocese. He was very supportive of his clergy and active in building churches.
1849
ALFORD, HENRY [1810‑1871] – Dean of Canterbury who showed early precociousness by writing Latin odes and a History of the Jews before the age of ten. In 1829 he went to Cambridge and became a vicar in 1835. He was chiefly known for his edition of the Greek New Testament [1849‑1861]. He also wrote a number of hymns including “Come ye thankful people come” and was the first editor of "Contemporary Review".
FABER, FREDERICK WILLIAM [1814-1863] – English hymn writer. Although his upbringing was Calvinistic he was influenced at Oxford by J.H. Newman and although he was ordained in the Church of England in 1830 he became a Roman Catholic in 1845. In 1849 he started a branch of the Oratory of St Philip Neri in London which developed into the Brompton Oratory. He wrote many devotional books and several collections of verse and was an ardent propagandist for the Roman Catholic Church. He also wrote a number of hymns which were published in the Roman Catholic Westminster hymnal.
FRANZELIN, JOHANNES BAPTIST [1816-1886] – Roman Catholic scholar trained by the Franciscans who entered a Jesuit order in 1834. He taught for six years in Austrian Poland, then studied theology at Rome and Louvain and was ordained in 1849. He worked in the German College at Rome and lectured in Oriental languages. He was papal theologian at Vatican I and was made cardinal in 1876.
HARMS, LUDWIG [1808-1865] – Mission organiser in Germany who was converted to a strongly biblical Christianity in 1830. Due to his interest in foreign nations he assisted in forming the North German Mission in 1836. Although his parishioners were simple peasants they founded missionary training school in 1849 and sent a group of missionary colonists to Ethiopia in 1853. Forbidden to land there, they relocated to Natal and established a settlement named Hermannsburg. Harms never left Germany but continually fostered the work at home and dispatched more agricultural missionaries to open up new stations elsewhere in South Africa where they followed a Lutheran rule.
HAWKS, ANNIE SHERWOOD [1835-1918]. – Poet and Hymn Writer. Hawks’ poems first began appearing in newspapers when she was 14 years old. She married Charles H. Hawks in 1857. They lived in Brooklyn, New York, and attended the Hanson Place Baptist Church, where Robert Lowry was pastor. When her husband died in 1888, she moved to Bennington, Vermont to live with her daughter and son-in-law (W. E. Putnam). She wrote 400 hymns in her life, mostly for use in Sunday schools, her most well known one being “I need Thee every hour”
LINCOLN, WILLIAM [1825-1888] – English preacher who was converted at 17 partly through the reading of Doddridge’s “Rise and Progress of Religion”. He studied with missionary service in mind but abandoned that plan because of poor health. He was ordained in 1849 and after a period as a curate was appointed minister of Beresford Chapel in Walworth where his preaching was very popular. He became disillusioned with the established church and continued to minister in the form of a Brethren assembly.
PALMER, WILLIAM [1803-1885] – Educated in Dublin and Oxford he was brought into contact with J. Keble, Froude and J.H. Newman and other Tractarian leaders. He was a rigid High Churchman and strongly opposed both Roman Catholic and Dissenters. Palmer was prebendary of Salisbury from 1849 to 1858 and assumed the title of baronet on his father's death in 1865.
PUNSHON, WILLIAM MORLEY [1824-1881] – Methodist minister who was born, educated, and ordained in 1849 in England, and served there for 18 years before going to the Metropolitan Church in Toronto in 1868. A man of moving eloquence he had a vision of Canadian Methodism united from Atlantic to Pacific and was a prime mover behind the negotiations of the unification which led in 1874 to the emergence of the Methodist Church of Canada.
REUSCH, FRANZ HEINRICH [1825-1900] – Old Catholic theologian who was educated at a number of German universities. He was ordained as a priest in 1849 and taught Old Testament exegesis at Bonn from 1854 and as professor from 1861. Reusch was a close friend of J.J.I. von Dollinger [see 1830] and strongly opposed the Vatican Council decision on papal infallibility being present at the Nuremberg Declaration [see 1870]. He was excommunicated in 1872 and ministered at an Old Catholic church in Bonn. In 1873 he became rector of Bonn University and retired in 1878 and wrote many books on Old Testament subjects and modern church history.
WARNER SUSAN [1819-1885], WARNER ANNA BARTLETT [1820-1915] – The Warner sisters wrote famous children's Christian songs. Susan wrote “Jesus Bids us Shine” while Anna was author of the first verse of the well-known children's song “Jesus Loves Me, This I Know”, which she wrote at Susan's request. Both sisters became devout Christians in the late 1830s. After their conversion, they became confirmed members of the Mercer Street Presbyterian church, although in later life, Susan became drawn into Methodist circles. The sisters also held Bible studies for the West Point cadets. When they were on military duty, the cadets would sing "Jesus loves me." The popularity of the song was so great that upon Warner's death, she was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. She was the first civilian to be given this honour. Her sister Anna also was buried there on her death. The Warners could trace her lineage back to the Puritan Pilgrims on both sides. Their father was Henry Warner, a New York City lawyer originally from New England, and their mother was Anna Bartlett, from a wealthy, fashionable family in New York's Hudson Square. When they were young children their mother died, and her father's sister Fanny came to live with the Warners. Although Henry Warner had been a successful lawyer, he lost most of his fortune in the Panic of 1837 and in subsequent lawsuits and poor investments. The family had to leave their mansion at St. Mark's Place in New York and move to an old Revolutionary War-era farmhouse on Constitution Island, near West Point, NY. In 1849, seeing little change in their family's financial situation, Susan and Anna started writing to earn money. They were also prolific writers.
1850
ARNOT, WILLIAM [1808‑1875] – Scottish preacher and author who studied in Glasgow gaining distinction particularly in Greek. He opened a new church in Main Street Glasgow having been ejected from the Free Church in 1850. He was called to the Free High Church in Edinburgh where he ministered until his death. "Illustrations of the book of Proverbs" [1857 ‑ 1858] were among the many books he wrote.
BLACKWELL, ANTOINETTE LOUISA BROWN [1825-1921] – Reformer and one of the first ordained women in America who graduated from Oberlin in 1847 completing the course in 1850. Refused a preaching license she finally became pastor of the Congregational Church of South Butler New York but resigned four years later because of theological problems. She became a Unitarian and circuit speaker on temperance and women’s rights.
DUPANLOUP, FELIX ANTOINE PHILIBERT [1802-1878] – Bishop of Orleans. He was educated in Paris and ordained in 1825. In 1850 as bishop of Orleans he entered the major quarrels besetting the Church of France and initiated many diocesan charities and inspired his subordinates. With the Italian war he moved to the forefront of the European politico-religious scene, writing brochures and defending papal temporal power, but he won disfavour at Vatican I Council. He was elected to the French Academy and was accepted even among unbelievers in French society, vigorously promoting education for women.
ELLERTON, JOHN [1826-1893] – English hymn writer. Educated at Cambridge where he was influenced by F.D. Maurice [see 1838] but did not identify itself with any party in the Church of England. He held several appointments from 1850 with his last living being at White Roding Essex. He composed 86 hymns which he refused to copyright including “The day Thou gavest Lord is ended”.
GEYMONAT, PAOLO [1827-1907] – Waldensian evangelist and scholar who graduated from theological school in Geneva and ordained pastor in 1850. His earnest desire to spread the gospel in Italy led him to work as an evangelist in Rome, Florence, Turin, and Genoa. In 1855 he was invited with G.P. Revel to start a Waldensian school of theology at Torre Pellice which he carried out with success amid many difficulties. After the unification of most of Italy in 1860 he moved the school to Florence where he lectured until 1902. He attempted during his lifetime to solve the conflict between the Waldensian Church with its rigid organisation and the other Italian denominations.
HUGHES, JOHN JOSEPH [1797-1864] – Roman Catholic archbishop of New York who was born in Ireland and went to the USA in 1870. He was ordained in 1826 and became assistant bishop in New York in 1837. He founded St John's College in 1841 and became the bishop in New York in 1842 and archbishop in 1850. He organised the parochial church system of New York and freed it from public and lay control. Early the Civil War he was successful as the envoy of the United States government in winning sympathy for the Union cause in France, Ireland, and Italy.
MACDONALD, GEORGE [1824-1905] – Scottish novelist and poet who became minister of the Congregational Church at Arundel Sussex in 1850. For expressing views on final judgement that left some hope for the heathen he was opposed by his deacons and had his salary reduced. By 1853 the situation had become intolerable and thereafter he supported himself and his wife by lecturing, tutoring, writing, and occasional preaching. Though his health was poor and his poverty great he had a deep faith in God and reacted against the Calvinism of his day but not violently. He never became liberal in his theology. He had great influence on C.S. Lewis [see 1941].
STRANG JAMES JESSE [1813-1856] – Mormon leader who was born of Baptist parents in New York. Strang studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1836 He became interested in Mormonism through his wife's brother-in-law Moses Smith and was converted to the movement through Joseph and Hyrum Smith in 1844. When the former was killed Strang claimed to be the successor, eventually forming the Mormon sect known by his name in St James Big Beaver Island Lake Michigan where he was crowned king in 1850. He announced a revelation proclaiming plural marriage as a divine institution in 1850 taking four wives himself. He made many enemies and was finally assassinated in 1856.
STROSSMAYER, JOSEPH GEORGE [1815-1905] – Roman Catholic bishop who was ordained for the priesthood in 1838 and nine years later became professor of canon law in Vienna. In 1850 he was elevated to the bishopric of Bosnien. At Vatican Council I he opposed papal infallibility and was the last bishop to publish the decrees of the Council in December 1872. In spite of his German heritage, Strossmayer was an enthusiastic pan-Slavist which brought him into conflict with Vienna. The pan-Slavic movement he advocated resulted in the formation of Yugoslavia after World War I.
WISEMAN, NICHOLAS PATRICK STEPHEN [1802-1865] – English cardinal and first archbishop of Westminster [1850-1865] who was chiefly responsible for the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in England. Wiseman was Anglo-Irish by birth and rector of the English College in Rome [1828-1840] and began promoting the restoration based on hopes of Catholic revival and conversion of England, prompted by the Oxford Movement. He returned to England as the assistant bishop in the Midlands and undertook a special mission to Pius IX to urge church restoration which occurred in 1850. Pius IX named him cardinal and first English Catholic primate. He promoted Ultramontane principles and practices, the establishment of English branches of religious orders, and organised basic Catholic ministries among the newly immigrant Irish. Wiseman's enthusiastic announcement in October 1850 caused popular anti-Catholicism including a statement by Prime Minister Lord John Russell that it was “papal aggression”.
YOUNG, BRIGHAM [1801-1877] – Founder of the Mormon’s settlements in Utah. Young had little schooling but great leadership ability. He joined Joseph Smith's Mormons in 1832 and led the group to Kirtland, Ohio becoming an apostle in 1835 and chief of the Twelve Apostles in 1838. He led the Mormons from Missouri to Utah in 1847 and organised the state of Deseret. In 1850 he became governor of the Territory of Utah and did most of the planning for the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City and founded the University of Utah.
